Law.com has reported that President Trump has announced his intention to nominate Irell & Manella partner Andrei Iancu to be director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Iancu would succeed Michelle Lee, who resigned in June. Joseph Matal is currently leading the office on an interim basis.

Law.com reveal…

Iancu’s name has been mentioned for months as a possible PTO director, along with former Johnson & Johnson IP chief Philip Johnson and others. He brings big chops as patent litigator, with much of it on behalf of patentees. For Irell, the appointment means the loss of one of its top rainmakers.

Iancu represented TiVo Corp. in a decade-long fight to enforce a patent on a key component of DVR technology. The company collected $1.6 billion from defendants including EchoStar, AT&T, Motorola, Microsoft and Cisco.

He’s also helped defend companies such as B/E Aerospace and Ariosa Diagnostics from patent infringement actions, and succeeded in canceling patent claims via inter partes review at the PTO.